Take 90-120 young people with raging puberty hormones. Put them into a single building without the more calming influences of younger or older students. Test them relentlessly. Eliminate their recess time and reduce their physical education time. Give them technology that can be used to open up the world, or shut down their peers’ emotional wellbeing.

What could possibly go wrong?

Maine’s Human Rights Commission voted last week to pursue a lawsuit against the Brunswick School Department, claiming that the Junior High didn’t do enough about the bullying of a student over a period of 2 1/2 years.

The student’s mother filed a formal complaint in 2012, accusing the school district of discrimination for failing to do more to address the physical and verbal harrassment of her son. He says he was teased about his appearance and lack of athletic ability. The boy said that they called him “gay.” Later, the boy said he was sexually assaulted as well, but the district and the police department found no credible evidence of the alleged assaults.

The school did respond with a series of initiatives, and by speaking to the offenders and their parents. But the boy eventually withdrew from the school and was briefly hospitalized and diagnosed with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

But what if … what if … the problem is the structure of the school itself ?

Bullying skyrockets in middle school and tapers off by high school. Emotional bullying is the most prevalent form in middle school years, but cyberbullying — using social media and the internet to harass a target — is on the increase in middle school as well. Most school bullying occurs in the school itself, not on the playground or on the bus. It occurs, seemingly, right under the teachers’ noses.

Kids this age, unlike younger kids, are perfectly capable of watching for their chance to be mean or rude to another kid. Zero tolerance policies mean that if a bullied kid gets fed up and takes a swing, he’s the one who loses again, by suspension or expulsion. This creates not only a hormonal pressure cooker, but a dawning sense of learned helplessness among kids who are bullied in school.

There are fewer cases of bullying in schools that are K-8, or in schools that include middle school as part of their high schools. Reducing multiple transitions — including the “intermediate” school transition that some towns and cities have — creates less disruption for students, and that fact alone can support their emotional health. Many K-8 schools have components in which the middle school students are responsible school “elders”, helping out in younger grades, participating in school government, and not excluded from recess or daily physical exercise.

In schools that have middle school as part of high school, the reverse is true: the older high school students reach back and support and mentor the younger kids coming into their school, almost as if they were younger brothers or sisters.

That makes a major difference in how middle and high school students see others — and themselves.

Pressure cookers can prepare things faster, whether that’s a dinner or a child’s education. But the danger in a pressure cooker is the distinct risk of explosion. Bullied kids in middle school are more likely to carry a weapon to school than older kids, although high schoolers are more likely to use weapons. A majority of middle school students say that a shooting is a distinct possibility at their school.

The trade-off in returning to a K-8 model is the loss of more sophisticated labs and other facilities possible in a separate facility, but that is a small price to pay for greater selfesteem, a calmer school atmosphere, and a greater sense of community.